BEING promoted helps make Darlington a more attractive proposition to potential new signings, believes manager Martin Gray, who says he has some big names coming to Quakers.

Seven days ago Darlington completed their season and achieved promotion to the National League North, Step 2 in non-league.

Playing at that level will tempt players to switch to Quakers, as will the club’s move to Blackwell Meadows, claims the manager.

Gray said: “The promotion is a massive help because players always want to test themselves at a higher level, so when you’ve got a club with our ambition and going to a new ground it is a big attraction.

“We’ve got players lined up that we’ve been working on all season. We have a scouting system in place, we have our targets and we will try to get them tied down as quickly as we can.

“In the next week or two there’ll be some big signings coming to this club.”

While supporters have formed an emotional attachment to the current squad due to their success, winning 33 of 46 matches to finish on 104 points, Gray points out that strengthening the pool of players at his disposal is essential.

“We need to strengthen the squad because if you stand still you end up going backwards,” he said.

“We need to do our business as quickly as we can and hopefully bringing players in will keep competition healthy.

“That’s what we’ve done this season, we’ve improved the squad compared with last year, and by doing that we won promotion.

“We brought some real top players in. Players like Kevin Burgess have come in with a winning mentality, while other signings, like Liam Hardy, have made us better and bought into what we’re about.”

Phil Turnbull was among Darlington’s signings last summer, the midfielder dropping down two divisions from Gateshead and displaying a greater mastery of the ball that any other player in the Northern Premier League.

It is that level of player which Gray would ideally like to add to the squad.

“Phil had a tremendous season,” said Gray. You talk about experience and making good decisions, he has been great.

“We need to recruit the same level of player again, and we can’t have another season of having a threadbare squad.

“We only used 17 players all season. Amar Purewal’s back but he needs a pre-season, Paul Weldon came in and did a job for us for the last two or three games, but we need a squad of 18-20 first-team players. We need strength in depth.”